How many cameras does a smartphone need? Two? Four? LG pushes the limit to the extreme in a patent describing a smartphone with no less than 16 camera lenses arranged to capture the best possible images.
Discovered by Dutch website LetsGoDigital, the patent titled 'Mobile terminal and control method for the mobile terminal' filed by LG a the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) on 20 November 2018. It describes a smartphone camera with 16 lenses set up in a matrix setup. The lenses are arranged at a certain curvature within the matrix, meaning different lenses can take a photo from different perspectives.
LG suggests one can choose a specific lens to take a photo, or combine multiple lenses into a moving image. One would even cut out part of a photo, and replace with another taken with a different lens. Boosting such functionality is AI, allowing the phone to recognise a face before allowing the user to replace it with a face from a photo taken with a different lens.
Of course, this LG patent remains exactly that, and the company gives no indication as to whether it will actually make such a camera. Then again the smartphone market is a constant arms race, so we would not be too surprised if the hexadecimal camera becomes reality sooner, not later.
